by Sharon Rondeau
(Dec. 28, 2022) — In his Christmas Eve “Twitter Files” release, independent journalist Matt Taibbi provided as an example of “fringiest material” a screenshot from an October 31, 2020 article published by Mary Fanning and Alan Jones of The American Report promoting the claim, proffered by former government subcontractor Dennis Montgomery, that hardware and software Montgomery allegedly invented while in service to the government was turned on the 2020 presidential election to alter its outcome.
Taibbi is one of a handful of journalists chosen by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk to release archived messages among Twitter employees as well as between Twitter executives and agencies of the federal government in the months preceding the election. After assuming ownership of the company in late October and prior to the release of the “Twitter Files,” Musk himself reported the platform to have “interfered in elections,” lost “public trust” and created “a crime scene.”
Internal messages show Twitter executives communicating with agents from the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice Department (DOJ), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and CENTCOM.
The FBI was a member of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), Taibbi reported, which prior to the 2020 election “swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”
A special secure portal was established, the Twitter Files show, for the FBI to communicate with company executives and upload documents. As the election approached, the FBI exerted increasing pressure on Twitter to review dozens of accounts the agency referred for allegedly violating the company’s terms of service.
Twitter removed many of the recommended accounts, the journalists’ disclosures show.
The involved federal agencies dealt with other tech-industry organizations in the same manner, Taibbi reported Saturday, to include “Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, and even Pinterest, and many others.”
In tweet #30 of the release, Taibbi referred to The American Report‘s October 31, 2020 article, titled, “Biden Using SCORECARD and THE HAMMER To Steal Another U.S. Presidential Election — “Just Like Obama And Biden Did in 2012, labeling it the “fringiest material” to be flagged by the FBI and submitted to Twitter as requiring review.
“It seemed to strike no one as strange that a ‘Foreign Influence’ task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS, about the fringiest material,” Taibbi wrote in his tweet.
The Post & Email has reported extensively on The American Report, whose articles promoting Montgomery’s allegations launched on March 17, 2017. In that article, Fanning and Jones introduced Montgomery’s claim to have “built” an alleged super-computer for the government, “The Hammer,” and later, to have designed a software program, “Scorecard,” which they reported was used to change the results of the presidential contest.
Several days after the election, Chris Krebs, then-director of CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency, a division of DHS), tweeted that “Hammer and Scorecard” were “nonsense” and “a hoax.”
On November 12, 2020, Krebs reported the November 3, 2020 election as “the most secure election in American history,” apparently provoking Trump to promptly fire him. Since November 4, 2020, Trump has claimed the election was “rigged” by various methods, including more recent revelations that the FBI suggested to Twitter before The New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story that it was a Russian disinformation campaign. At the same time, the FBI was in possession of the laptop and was monitoring the communications of Rudy Giuliani, who supplied the laptop’s contents to The Post.
Facebook, too, was reportedly warned of a potential “Russian propaganda” campaign and limited the reach of The Post‘s story after it was released on October 14, 2020.
On October 19, 2020, 51 former intelligence community (IC) officials signed a letter suggesting the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” a representation which proved misleading or uninformed at best.
In her recent American Report Twitter timeline, Fanning responded to Taibbi’s invoking of the website’s October 31, 2020 article by retweeting the screenshot and link to Musk, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan; issuing another tweet with a link to her and Jones’s book, “The Hammer is the Key to the Coup”; and reasserting to Taibbi a connection between Wikileaks’ 2017 publishing of CIA files dubbed “Vault 7” and the existence of “The Hammer.”
“Assange dropped CIA Vault 7, hours after we broke story of HAMMER. CIA Vault 7 exposed HAMR (HAMMER) — Military Intelligence confirmed HAMMER to me but also to Adm Ace Lyons and Gen McInerney. James Baker gave Immunity to CIA WHISTLEBLOWER-took the source code to HAMMER/SCORECARD,” Fanning tweeted December 24 to Taibbi in the form of a reply.
After researching the claims in Fanning and Jones’s book, The Post & Email found it contains false and defamatory information about former Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) volunteer investigator Mike Zullo which he deemed “legally actionable.”
As The Post & Email has reported, over many years Montgomery has made numerous claims ranging from possessing evidence of widespread government surveillance to foretelling in a 2015 interview with the FBI a “pandemic” as well as the 2021 cyber-breach of the SolarWinds facility to having invented technology (p. 8) the U.S. government allegedly utilized to “steal the election from President Trump” and hand a hollow victory to Joe Biden.
None of the claims has yet been corroborated or supported with verifiable evidence, although MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell became heavily invested, financially and otherwise, in Montgomery’s claims and proffered technology.
Fanning, Jones and broadcaster Brannon Howse were made producers/executive producers of Lindell’s 2021 video series, “Absolute Proof” in which Fanning purported to explain columns of data allegedly gathered by Montgomery as the 2020 election unfolded demonstrating an overseas “cyberwarfare attack” on the election.
Fanning reportedly introduced Montgomery to Lindell, who took Montgomery’s unvetted material to the White House as Trump was preparing to leave office in January 2021.
Since June 2021, Lindell has pledged to release the “PCAPS” (packet captures) he claims to have obtained from Montgomery from the election but has not yet delivered.
For a December 20, 2022 Reuters article, Fanning reportedly told reporters that if Lindell “has the data, then release it.”
Since Twitter’s internal deliberations about limiting certain accounts were disclosed earlier this month, Trump has claimed that Twitter, among other social-media platforms, participated in “rigging” the election against him by censoring The Post‘s accurate story which post-election polls indicate would have given a significant number of Biden voters pause prior to casting their ballots.
Trump’s Twitter account was suspended January 8, 2021 and reinstated in late November after Musk’s takeover of the company, although Trump has chosen to remain solely on TruthSocial, a platform developed by a Trump Organization-associated entity.
On October 25, 2020, The American Report further claimed, referring to one of two of Montgomery’s reported 2015 interviews with the FBI:
In August 2015, CIA contractor-turn-whistleblower Dennis L. Montgomery provided the FBI and the DOJ with evidence stored in 47 hard drives that implicates Robert Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, in illegal activities, Montgomery states. Among the 600 million pages of documents stored on those 47 hard drives of electronic data that Montgomery turned over to the FBI were 10,000 pages of documents regarding Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, according to Montgomery. The 10,000 pages of documents regarding Hunter Biden and Joe Biden included videos and images.”
On January 3, 2021, The American Report‘s 2020 election narrative shifted from solely “Hammer and Scorecard” as the source of alleged election-tampering to the aforementioned cyberwarfare attack led by China.
“Montgomery revealed that there is not just one HAMMER in the United States, but now, also a second HAMMER in the United Kingdom, and also, a third HAMMER in China,” Fanning and Jones reported. “How that happened is a mystery.”